Sunshine & Shadow, still happy in their new home. This is my answer to the question I kept getting, "Will you split them up?" - this is why I said no.
I love my dog, I love my dog, I love my dog.... I gotta keep repeating that. I wanted an active dog that I could train. So today, even though I shouldn't be taking the time to write this because I'm so busy, I squeezed in a training session because our trainer had time and wanted to use my dogs as a distraction for another client. A free session - I wasn't turning that down!
So my tired self hauled the dogs up to the kennel, about 20 minutes away. The session went really well actually. I'm learning how training Jimmy is much different than training Lexi. I got a lot of insight on how to make things better for our training. I was feeling pretty good, but dreading the ride home. Jimmy gets car sick, especially if he's got food in his tummy. I do positive reinforcement training, so he had lots of treats. He threw up about 5 minutes from the kennel and about 2 minutes from home. I had to stand in the rain and clean puke out of the car. And of course he can't just hit where I've put towels. Even though I had my hands on his head trying to aim his mouth I was still cleaning out little crevices in my car!
I told myself that I knew that would happen, it's not the dog's fault. That I as an owner need to learn how to deal with this. We're going to try dramamine next time. I was calm, checking my email quickly before my next appointment and I heard the sound of water running. He was peeing on my carpet! He's only had 2 accidents in the house ever, this would be the 2nd. What the heck?
I'm sick of the rain and wet, smelly dogs. It's a good thing he's so darn cute. I love my dog, I love my dog, I love my dog - I really like cats!
I'll post the adoption report tomorrow - none of mine got adopted, but it was still a great weekend. Maybe it was the break in the rain that lifted my spirits so much, but I got a much needed positive flow of energy.
The Pet Expo was so much fun. I saw so many people that I knew from the animal community - I didn't realize just how many people I know! And so many past adopters stopped by our booth. We remembered a few of them, but a lot of them had adopted pets from before I was part of the group. That made me happy to hear that we'd found real forever homes for them! One of the most memorable visitors was a woman who wasn't sure if I'd remember her dog. As soon as she said "Ian" I knew exactly the collie of which she spoke! He'd been left for dead in a rural area, had pulled through an amazing recovery and suffered bladder infections on top of all of that! But he has a wonderful owner who loves him and can't imagine life without him!
Sunday I managed to sneak off to the dog park before the rain started and Jimmy & I had a blast! We spent almost 2 hours out there and met some really fun dogs.
Here is Jimmy after taking a rather cool dip in the pond.
Here we have Jimmy meeting his new friend Baxter! Our dogs got along so well that we actually exchanged phone numbers to meet up again some time!
Baxter comes to the park because he NEEDS to run. His mom and I talked a lot about rescue - both of her dogs were rescues and Baxter's foster mom still thanks her for giving him a home. Not many people would have the patience to deal with a basenji mix that is very hard to tire out. It's not easy having a dog with such high energy needs, but it sure is fun. It was amazing watching them run non-stop. I thought that Jimmy was tired, but when we met up with Baxter he discovered another 1/2 hour of fuel.
Her other dog is Maggie, an 8-year-old rescued mix. Maggie was happy to let the boys tear around the fields, she went off and did her own thing. If you look closely in this picture, you'll see the rain drops. That meant that our day of fun was over, but what a great time we had!
I'm going to miss the flowers once we get a hard freeze. I hope that we get a couple of nice, sunny days before all the leaves are gone - I'd love to get a chance to take some scenic pictures!
I'm going to be at the Pet Expo all day tomorrow. I was there setting up today & can't wait to go back and see all the booths once they're set up. Everything a pet could need will be there - including another pet. Lots of rescue groups and pet services.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pets-save-taxes-congress-debate-happy-act/Story?id=8811927&page=1
Wouldn't it be great to claim all the dependents in your house? Especially the ones with 4 feet?
I don't think that anyone gets into rescue hoping that they can find out just how many animals they can fit into their house. I started innocently enough just helping with Santa pictures, then cleaning at PetSmart, then I took in a pair of kittens, then when they got adopted there were 2 litters looking for a foster home, so I said yes and it's just gone on from there. Saying no is hard, especially when you know that you are the difference between life and death for those pets.
People in rescue talk about their “number”, always striving for that perfect balance of trying to save as many lives as they can while giving all of the pets in their care a decent quality of life. Once you get above your “number”, you start warehousing instead of fostering and people get tired of doing rescue and quit. Responsible fosters try very hard not to go above their number, but sometimes it happens. Often it's just a temporary situation, like when you get a string of returns or you take in a litter of kittens (suddenly you have 6 more fosters just from one litter!) Most of the time a couple of adoptions will make all the difference and restore the perfect balance of saving lives while healing their souls.
I've only taken in cats twice this year, yet because of returns, the economy and slow adoptions I still find myself above that desired number. Just today I said no to one of our donors who found an abandoned cat in an empty apartment. That was so hard! And I have to board a pair of cats being returned because I have no room for them here. The cats here are fine and taken care of, but their lives could be better if they got more individual attention. They deserve to be pampered and played with instead of just cared for. So I'm going to do something that's really hard for me and ask for help. If you've ever considered fostering, this is a great time to try it out. We're not looking for families that want to see how many pets can fit in their house, we just want to see if you have room to let one or two crash on your couch for awhile!
So I'll be featuring pets looking for a more intimate fostering experience. It will help that pet get more love, help give me more time to give to the ones that are still here and you will find it rewarding beyond measure.
Taffy & Elizabeth, our first candidates for fostering, are adoption-ready and have fallen victim to an imperfect system. They were born at my house this spring and both were shy kittens. I worked with them as much as I could, but they needed time to come out of their shells. At my house, kittens are born in large cages – it gives mom privacy and keeps the kittens safe from the other fosters. As soon as they were ready, they moved to a cage at PetSmart where they got a lot more socialization from our wonderful cleaners, got to run around with other kittens, and made great progress, but they were still shy. They got passed over for the snuggly friendly kittens time and time again. Then one day they came down with a cold. A really bad cold! I was on vacation and our vet agreed to take them for us. They lived up at the vet for nearly a month so that we could keep their germs away from the other kitties here. Then to get reintroduced to my house, it was another cage. It's not supposed to be like this – the girls were six-months-old and lived in a cage for their whole lives. Add to that the medicine that they hated and no wonder they were shy!
So I did something about it. Much to the dismay of my husband, I let them live in my craft room. I understand his fear of cats taking over the house, especially since he has allergies. Part of our arrangement for me to foster is for me to have a lower “number” during the fall and winter when his allergies are the worst. But the move has been worth it. I've used my “krazy cat lady” skills on them to get them over being shy and now they greet me at the door, enjoy being petted and are normal, happy girls. They love that they have the bedroom next to the bird feeders!
They do have one special need – the cold that they got has left them with runny eyes once in awhile. They are on a really inexpensive supplement that gets mixed in with their food and if their eyes are sore, they can have some ointment. They should not be contagious to other cats that are fully vaccinated.
The girls would be fine if you could
offer a spare bedroom or they would love the chance to get used to
living in a whole house. As a foster you would have to bring them to
PetSmart on Saturdays to give them their chance to be adopted, but
this would be a great opportunity to give fostering a try because
hopefully it will only take a few months. And if they had a different "couch to crash on", I could bring the returned cats home.
Having a Monday? Aren't we all?
Sometimes you just have to find the silver lining even though it means you have to search a long time to find it!
Warning: this post will be talking quite a bit about poop and bodily functions. I'm a foster mom and it's something that we talk about a lot! If you don't want to hear about poop again, then just skip to the next post with the who got adopted report.
But you know it's a Monday when you get pooped on by a cat and you know you haven't lost your sense of humor when you can find the silver lining in it!
I think about cat poop a lot, it comes with the territory. If there's something wrong with the poop, there's something wrong with the cat. In fact Bob is at the vet today because I've been thinking that he's been a bit "ADR" - short hand for the technical condition of "ain't doing right". Bob has litterbox issues and today when I cleaned his poop off the floor, I noticed that it wasn't as much as usual, which means that he's not eating very well as I suspected. So he's staying up at the vet for observation and possibly some x-rays. The first tests show that he has yet another bladder infection, so it's time to figure out what's going on with our poor boy! But had it not been for watching the poop, I wouldn't have had evidence to back up my gut feeling that he wasn't doing right.
The next poop stories involve happier outcomes and some big bellies and the silver linings.
As I was doing my kitty chores last night, I was cleaning some icky poopy off the floor, trying to figure out which kitty wasn't making it to the box in time. I was noticing that the litter that was sick (Delta Dawn, Proud Mary, Wild Thing) were starting to put weight back on again. Then Wild Thing waddled up to me and begged for more canned food. Standing directly over her, I noticed that her sides were quite wide. Two things came to mind - pregnancy and FIP. I didn't like either option. She's been here for just about 2 months, so if she got pregnant right before I got her it could be possible (I don't have any intact males here and she's not spayed because of this virus she's been fighting) I tried to hold on to that thought because the alternative FIP is fatal. I barely slept last night worrying about her, wondering if her illness would affect the kittens, trying to think of what drugs she's had and if they're contraindicated in pregnancy.
So as I'm checking her out this morning, wondering if she's the one having accidents, Delta Dawn jumps up on me and perches on my shoulder like a parrot. I gave her some petting and when she jumped off of me, she left something behind on my shirt, also much like a parrot. But the silver lining is that I now know who my culprit is!
At the vet there was more good news. Wild Thing wasn't pregnant, she doesn't have FIP, she has gas! Poor thing to be that gassy and bloated. I really feel for her, but at least it's not fatal!
And in more good news, she has coccidia. Which means that her whole litter probably has coccidia. Coccidia is a parasite that causes nasty poop, really stinky stuff that has a certain color and can have blood in it. Cats can get very run down from this if left untreated. So why am I so happy about this? Because they have a diagnosis! They're not just having "mystery poop"! I got enough medication to treat the whole bunch and now I get to dump out all the litter and bleach the boxes but I don't mind. I love that there is a protocol for this and that I can make them better!
So for a poopy Monday, things are going well so far.
In a similar story, we visit Poor Scary - just when she started eating on her own and doing really well, she got all stuffy again so she's back on antibiotics. I've been giving her a measured portion of canned food, but apparently it was too much, or she ate too fast, because she was quite a rotund little girl. I was worried that she wasn't eliminating, I was worried that it was FIP or worms. So she got dewormed again, a bit less food, a bit more running time and while she's not slender, she doesn't look like she swallowed a ball anymore! She's little enough that I could say she swallowed a tennis ball. Poor thing has spent her whole young life having food put in her mouth, now that she gets to eat on her own, it's hard to stop!
Scary is coming along very well though. Not sure when she'll be big and strong enough for a spay and a new home, but at least I'm thinking about those things for her! Amazing to think that I was worried about if she'd make it or not and now I'm wondering when she can go to a new home.
I guess Monday's aren't so bad afterall.
Dogs: Louie: male chihuahua, Phoebe: female shitzu/chow, the cutest thing!
Kittens: Twilight: black female, Pyro: black male from the firefighter litter, Len: male tuxedo, Paxton: medium haired orange male, Tracker: female orange and white & Carlyle: buff male
Cats: TITAN!! I'm so excited that my Titan found a home. They took a long time to think about it, which is good. He's not the kind of cat that you rush into. I talked to them the first night and so far so good, he was vocal when left alone, but wanted to be with them already. Hopefully the 4th time is the charm!
Special kudos - 2 black cats went home, one of which is getting quite a bit bigger than the little cuties. Tracker is another victory, such a shy girl getting a home is a wonderful thing to see! And little Carlyle charmed us all day, getting passed around and snuggled until he got squirmy, then we'd make him play with his tail and he'd get tired and want to snuggle again.
Two very exciting bits of news, hard to decide which one to lead with.
Scary is a big girl now! She can eat canned food out of bowl on the floor. The "on the floor" part is key - yesterday we had mastery of the bowl, but I had to hold it. Today she's happily chomping away like a big kitty!
If you think about it, she went from nursing and having to extend her head, to syringe feeding having to tilt her head upward. So bending down to the ground to eat is something she's never done. Then add the bonding to feeding time - she's always associated eating with loving comfort, why would you look for that out of a bowl on the ground. And the last piece of the puzzle was a stuffy nose - the food on the ground just didn't smell that much to her.
So I've been trying to entice her to eat off the syringe and holding that over the bowl, but that wasn't working. So yesterday, I put the bowl on my shoulder and tried again, using the syringe like a form of chopsticks rather than sucking up any food. It worked! I was able to put the tip of the syringe in the bowl and she was still going for it. Over the course of feedings for the day I was able to remove the syringe. This morning I tried just food in a bowl on the floor and she ate! I can find plenty of other ways to bond with a kitten, I'm so glad that hand-feeding is off my daily chore list!
The other great news (and I hate to count my chickens before they're hatched) is that Titan should be going to his new home this week! A nice family came out to meet him on Saturday and have decided that they want to adopt him. I'm gonna miss that booger! He's definitely a cat that I could keep, but he's not a good fit for my house because of the dogs (Titan HATES dogs). Since Saturday, Titan has been hanging out in an extra room at my house instead of in the basement. He and Remmie haven't been getting along, so I wanted to see how Titan would do with a couple of other cats instead and it's been going very well. But in this room, Titan can see my dogs in the back yard and he stands at the window and gets very upset! Especially when Jimmy stands on the other side of the window looking in!
Just thought I'd share the good news with you! I hope the good news keeps coming!
What a rollercoaster the past few days have been. Silly was so sick, then rallied, then crashed, then rallied, then deteriorated, then rallied but at 2:00AM he lost his fight. I'd say that he died in my arms, but he was so small that he died in my hands. He was a favorite of the vet techs because no matter how pathetic he was, he still wanted attention and would purr so happily. Even as late at 1:00AM he was still responding to my touch and purring. His spirit was that of a fighter, but his little body just couldn't handle it. Fluids, nebulizers and round the clock care were no match. I have seen this so many times and it's so hard to tell which ones will pull through and which ones won't. I would've bet money that Scary wasn't going to make it and she's doing great. I think back to my first truly pathetic kitten - Cyan and how the fact that she pulled through gives me hope every time I have a special little patient.
None of my cats were adopted yesterday, but I had a really good hit on Titan and someone who may be interested in fostering Maria - so keep your fingers crossed!
Little bits of hope blended with despair led to a restless night of sleep. I didn't want to get out of bed this morning, but being a people mom and a cat foster mom means that there's plenty to do and no time to wallow. It was hard feeding Scary this morning, she looks so much like her brother. She still looks at me as if I'm cruel to offer her canned food on a spoon instead of her syringe. She'll figure it out eventually and for now I don't mind giving her some extra mothering.
After feeding Scary, I checked in on Titan. I put him in a bathroom last night because the family was going to be calling to say if they wanted him or not and sometimes Titan likes to hide for a couple days after an outing so I wanted to be able to find him. I tried explaining to them that they'd have lots of fun stories about Titan that no other cat would provide. I think he could be the cat equivalent to Marley, that famous yellow lab. He's wonderful, but one of a kind. I opened the bathroom door and stepped in this (didn't think to look down, just entered as usual) We had just painted some trim and the paint can was on the bathroom counter. Titan had knocked it off and it burst open. So I spent the next 1/2 hour wiping paint off the floor and getting it out of the grout. The show must go on, no time to think about what's been lost, too many others demanding my attention!
